674 Bells of war

( 4 days later ) 

Max was casually inspecting the batch of non-flammable tape rolls that had just been circulated amongst the troops and found it to be unsatisfactory. 

To manufacture them fast, Max had ordered them to be made while applying glue to existing rolls of normal tape and then coating them with non-flammable wax to achieve the desired result. 

Following his order, Asiva had mobilised a sizable work force to make these tapes and within 4 days made enough to fully cover 300,000 troops, but Max was not very happy with the first batch. 

The coat of wax meant to stick on the tapes was very thin and would slowly melt off under about 10 minutes of a direct flame applied to it. 

For their use to be even considered effective, Max needed them to at least work for 25 minutes. 

He could achieve those levels if he wet the tapes and covered them in mud, but the tapes themselves were not upto the mark.